Artefact Hunters: Ikimono's Mirror

     Hanso found himself tucked away in a little teahouse, watching listlessly out a window and nursing a cup of the place’s namesake beverage. He didn’t even like tea, but he’d heard that it was supposed to relieve stress or something. The local guards hadn’t let him join in on the manhunt for the poachers, and when he asked after Ryuji, he’d been told that the wizard was out somewhere. So, for the moment, he honestly didn’t know what else he could do.

     He let out a low huff and glanced down at the dregs swirling in his cup. Stupid leaf-water wasn’t working, and he didn’t like the looks the shop owner was starting to give him over it.

     Half to distract himself and half to dissuade the proprietor from needling him to buy another cup, he pulled out his and Brynn’s communication gem. He studied it for a few moments, trying to decide who to contact. Fyora didn’t really need to know about this latest fiasco yet, and he had no intention of telling his boss that he’d gone and lost the captain of her royal guard to petpet-nappers. Min was absolutely out. He needed to vent his frustrations to someone, not endure the sneering judgement of some puffed-up magician. He’d contact Jazan if he wanted that.

     Master Hikaru was the sort of wise old guy who probably listened well without too much judgement. But Hanso didn’t even know if the venerable Ogrin had a communicator, and if so, he doubted his and Brynn’s had been connected to it. The only option he could think of there was to call Min after all and somehow convince her to hand off her communication gem to someone else for a few minutes.

     Instead, he just blurted out the first name that came to mind without making him squirm.

     “Gamal.”

     For several seconds, nothing happened. Hanso was starting to think that maybe Gamal couldn’t or wouldn’t answer, but then the crystal’s shining surface dimmed, and the face of a Desert Moehog appeared.

     “Hanso?” he asked, frowning thoughtfully. Gamal was an explorer of his native Lost Desert, and he’d both discovered the artefact that had led to Hanso and Brynn’s first official mission and helped them retrieve it. “I wasn’t expecting a call from you. Do you need my help with a…”

     Gamal paused and leaned in closer to his own communication gem. “Where are you right now? That doesn’t look like the Lost Desert, or Faerieland for that matter.”

     Hanso sighed. “Shenkuu. It’s kind of a long story, which is why I called you. I need somebody to talk to, or I might actually explode.”

     Gamal blinked, taken aback. “Oh. Well, er, I’d be happy to listen, of course. But where is Brynn? I thought you would prefer her as a confidante, even if you’re not travelling with her right now.”

     Hanso groaned and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Yeah, that’s the problem.” He launched into a half-rambling account of everything that had happened, from him and Brynn tracking down the cave to her getting kidnapped by petpet smugglers of all people.

     Gamal’s ears drooped a little as the explanation went on. “I’m… sorry? But if you made it to town and found time to voice your frustrations to a random acquaintance, I’m guessing that means you at least have some kind of plan.”

     Hanso pouted. “Yeah, I got a bunch of guards looking for ‘em. And Brynn’s smart; she’s probably managed to escape by now anyway. But I’m stuck here in the meantime, and even once this little fiasco gets figured out, it still won’t change the fact that my girlfriend’s a cat!”

     He… may have said that last part a little louder than intended. Gamal didn’t respond for several moments. At the other side of the teahouse, the proprietor’s expression had by now shifted from ‘vaguely annoyed in a way that will only be resolved by this loafer making another purchase’ to ‘genuinely concerned about the customer’s mental state.’

     Finally, Gamal cleared his throat. “Uh… wasn’t she already a cat, though?”

     Hanso huffed. “You know what I mean.”

     Behind him, the sound of a door sliding open signalled another customer coming in. That was good. Hanso hadn’t been a hundred per cent sure this place was normally open this late, and sitting here swirling around the remains of his tea still felt preferable to holing up in an inn and trying to sleep in the midst of all this. Maybe the shop owner would keep busy with the new customer and stop giving him looks.

     From the other side of the communication gem, Gamal reached up to scratch the back of his head. “Well, I wish I could help… or at least give some kind of advice. I know a few things about curses, but nothing that would help reverse something like this.”

     Hanso shrugged. “Yeah, thanks anyway. It just helps having someone to talk to who isn’t my boss, and without Brynn here…”

     “Of course. Just contact me once you have an update, okay?” Gamal raised an eyebrow. “Because now I’m going to be stuck worrying about you both.”

     “Excuse me, are you the one sent by Lady Min?”

     Hanso yelped and almost dropped his communicator. He looked up to see a Red Hissi idling beside his table, a steaming cup of tea clutched in his wings. The Hissi was on the older side – not quite elderly, just enough for a few spots of grey in the long black moustache that was his only bit of hair. He wore simple robes that nevertheless struck Hanso as “distinguished.”

     Hanso recomposed himself. “Uhh… yeah?” He quickly signed off with Gamal and turned to give the Hissi his full attention. “And I’m guessing you’re Ryuji, the wizard?”

     The Hissi bowed his head. “Yes. I apologise for not finding you sooner. I was out gathering rare herbs in the forest when you came into town. May I sit and hear what it is you need from me?”

     Hanso nodded, trying not to get distracted, wondering how exactly Hissis distinguished “sitting” from “standing.” Ryuji took the floor cushion opposite his, coiling low on the seat. Once he was comfortable, Hanso launched once again into the full explanation of everything he and Brynn had been through and how it had brought him here, alone, moping in a forest village’s teahouse.

     At the end of it, Ryuji’s eyes were wide. “Master Hanso!” he cried, bowing his head more deeply and making Hanso wonder if everyone in Shenkuu was going to keep calling him that. “I was not told that the Faerie Queen’s champions were the ones who needed my help.”

     Hanso shrugged. “I came running in out of nowhere, carrying a bunch of saddlebags and ranting about poachers. I figured if I told the guards who I was, they’d either get caught up in all that or stop believing me altogether.”

     “Hmm.” Ryuji seemed to consider it for a long moment as he drank his tea. Once he’d drained it to the dregs, he set the cup down.

     “Well, I believe you. Lady Min is not well enough known among travellers for you to fake her name. Our problem now is that we do not know where exactly the poachers took Captain Brynn and your steeds. I have something that may help with that, but first, we need a direction to start in.”

     Hanso sighed and started to lean back, only remembering at the last moment that his floor cushion didn’t come with a back to lean against. “Finally, some good news. I can take you to where we got attacked, at least. Don’t know where the poachers went from there, but I can’t imagine it was that far.”

     As he trailed off, thinking it over, he let his gaze drift out the window and started absently tapping a finger on the table. He paused, though, when something off in the distance caught his eye.

     “Hey, Ryuji?” he asked, squinting at the plume of faintly illuminated smoke drifting above the trees of a distant rise. “Is that normal for this part of Shenkuu?”

     Ryuji’s gaze followed his pointing finger, and he frowned. “That looks like the work of an angry Kazeriu,” he said. “But it’s extreme. They normally use much smaller mists or simply turn invisible when dealing with predators or rivals. Something must have truly earned a Kazeriu’s ire to get such a reaction.”

     Hanso blinked and sat up straighter, his ears quivering. He glanced back at the Hissi. “You mean, something like a band of obnoxious poachers? Because that doesn’t look too far away from where I got attacked.”

     Ryuji raised an eyeridge and returned his look. “That sounds plausible. It would certainly be a direction to start in.”

     Hanso grinned and, without thinking, drained the rest of his tea. He nearly gagged at the lukewarm liquid, but managed to keep his composure as he set the cup back down with a satisfying finality.

     “That’s good enough for me. Let’s get my partner back.”

     An eerie, low whistle filled the poacher camp as the freed Kazeriu darted around, filling the clearing with a bright, ethereal, smoky mist that left everything in a confusing haze. The two sleeping poachers had sprung off their mats, but it didn’t do them much good in the swiftly descending chaos.

     “The petpets are loose!” Eiko yelled, stumbling back when one of the Dandans ran between her legs with a noisy chitter. “Yasu, how did you let this happen?!”

     Yasu had just fluttered down into the clearing. She baulked as the Quilin let out a loud roar, its fiery mane roiling with power and threatening to set the camp ablaze.

     “My job was to watch for intruders, not this!” she snapped. “It’s not my fault you couldn’t bother to secure the petpets properly.”

     While that was happening, Brynn jumped down from the rocky ledge where the Kazeriu had been contained and made a dash for Rohane. Boraxis had run into another part of the camp, and both Alkenores were rearing and shrieking.

     As the Kazeriu started whipping up gusts to spray dirt and pebbles at the three poachers, Brynn planted herself in front of Rohane and eyed his swinging reins. When they fell within reach, she grabbed hold of them in her teeth and pulled back to make him slow and calm down.

     Somewhere off to her side, a rush of hot air told her that the Quilin had just set something on fire. Eiko shrieked, “Fyora help us!”

     Brynn allowed herself a tiny snort at that. Nice try, but I’m one of Fyora’s champions, she thought to herself. She’d be on my side here.

     Rohane had stopped rearing and was starting to follow her direction. She could see that he was still alert and ready to take action, but he trusted her enough to follow her lead on what that action would be. Keeping his reins in her mouth, she gave the Quilin a wide berth and moved as quickly as she could toward Boraxis. Glowing smoke and bits of errant dust stung her eyes and did no favours for her vision, but she could just see his thrashing form slowing at the approach of friendly faces.

     “The Biyako has the Alkenores!” Kaito shouted, making Brynn’s ears prick. She glanced back to see his hazy shape jabbing a meaty finger her way even as he and Yasu scrambled for something to put out the fire with.

     “What in blazes are you talking about?!” Eiko snapped, shielding herself from the Kazeriu’s onslaught with one hand and groping for a net with the other.

     “I mean, she’s literally gathering the Alkenores to run off with them!” Kaito wailed. “I told you that Biyako was up to something, I told –”

     The Kazeriu interrupted him by flying into his face with another burst of mystical mist and whistling loudly enough to hurt even Brynn’s ears. Eiko snarled and threw the net at it. But the Kazeriu danced out of the way and disappeared into the main plume of mist, leaving the net to tangle around the Skeith instead.

     Brynn didn’t need any more prompting. Now that both Alkenores were focused on her and the poachers were back to being thoroughly distracted, she let go of Rohane’s reins and grunted for the two of them to follow. Then, with the Alkenores close at her heels, she darted between hedges and off into the darkness of the forest.

     Hanso and Ryuji could still see the faint glow of the Kazeriu’s magic mist through the gaps in the forest canopy. Hanso counted that as a good sign. The more time a magical petpet spent making a scene, the more likely it was that said petpet was dealing with something bigger than some territory dispute, and the less likely that it was losing.

     He held his lantern aloft to get a better look at his surroundings, his ears twitching for any noteworthy sound. Ixis had great night vision, but he wasn’t sure whether the same could be said for Hissis, and the extra light was welcome among all the forest nooks and tripping hazards anyway. Ryuji followed close behind, but his eyes were half-lidded, and he seemed to bob and sway slightly as he peered around.

     Hanso gave him a sidelong glance. “You, ah, sense anything yet?”

     Ryuji hummed in thought. Straightening up and opening his eyes for a moment, he replied, “Nothing concrete yet. I can sense spellcraft in the distance, but it’s too far away to tell whether it’s all from the Kazeriu or from something else. I’m not sure I will even begin to distinguish your partner’s transfiguration until she is very close.”

     He reached into a pouch on his belt, one he’d picked up just before they left town. “My other option is to start a tracking spell for a specific kind of Petpet. But I’ve never encountered an Alkenore and won’t be able to key the spell to them, and it won’t be able to tell Brynn apart from an ordinary wild Biyako. How sure are we that she has been taken this way?”

     Hanso squinted past the lantern’s light at the overhead glow. “I’m sure enough. I wouldn’t be surprised if Brynn managed to start whatever’s going on there herself. She’s been around me long enough to pick up a few clever thief tricks.”

     Ryuji nodded and withdrew a wingful of some kind of powder. This he tossed into the air with a soft incantation, creating a dusty cloud that smelled of dried berries and an herb that Hanso couldn’t place and almost made him sneeze.

     “Hmm,” Ryuji murmured, his tongue flicking for a moment to scent the airborne potion as it dispersed on the wind. He closed his eyes and tilted his head this way and that, as if trying to track the movements of something unseen. Hanso found the jerky motions a little unsettling, but he supposed it could be worse. He’d read that serpentine petpets didn’t even have eyelids, and he didn’t relish the thought of Ryuji doing his tracking thing while staring wide-eyed at everything.

     Finally, Ryuji said, “I sense… faint traces, mostly from wild Biyakos in their own territory. Wait.”

     He opened his eyes and cast Hanso a significant look. “There is at least one ahead. Not far from the source of the magic, if I’m not mistaken.”

     Hanso perked right up at that. “Good. Let’s go, then!”

     The two of them picked up the pace as much as they could in the dark forest, crashing through underbrush and following the wizard’s tracking spell. The mist had started to fade and disperse, and at one point, they heard a long, eerie whistle from a distant Kazeriu. Ryuji seemed encouraged by the sound, so Hanso assumed that it was a good whistle and not the wailing of a captured or dying petpet.

     Then, all at once, Ryuji halted. “Hang on.”

     Hanso turned with a frown. “What, is something wrong?”

     Ryuji had straightened up from his half-entranced state, but he tilted his head as if listening for something.

     “We are close,” he said. “Close enough that I can sense two Biyakos in the area. We should be cautious if we don’t want to anger the wild one.”

     Hanso grimaced. “Right. Uhh… How do we make sure we’re meeting the not-wild one?”

     Ryuji frowned. “Hopefully, by tracing the magic from Brynn’s transformation. But I still haven’t been able to distinguish it yet. Either she is the further Biyako, the nature of the spell means it leaves no residual traces for me to track, or they’re both wild.”

     Right. Of course. “Okay… So, which way is the closer, Biyako, then? In case it’s that second one.”

     At Ryuji’s gesture, he turned and crept forward with his lantern held out ahead. With luck, any wild petpets would shy away from the large figures carrying bright lights, while Brynn would see it as a beacon and find him before he found her.

     A movement drew his attention to a hollow under a fallen tree. He swept his light over the area in time to see a figure freeze, staring right at him.

     It was a Biyako, all right. An uncoloured Biyako, its white fur muted by dust and its green eyes glinting in the light.

     Hanso managed a weak smile. “Ah… I don’t suppose you’re my transformed partner, painted White by the poachers for some reason right before you escaped them?”

     The Biyako responded with a low growl, its hackles raising as it continued to stare him down.

     From somewhere behind him, Ryuji murmured, “Back away, slowly. Do not turn around. She is feeling cornered right now, and you don’t want to make her think she has both reason and opportunity to attack.”

     Hanso nodded and started to do so. “Trust me, I know,” he whispered back. “I spent a few weeks trekking through the Haunted Woods a while back. You’re sure this isn’t the kind of critter that will attack anyway?”

     Ryuji, keeping still further back, gave a small shake of the head. “Too small to go after both of us. Or, at least that should be the case. She’s agitated by something, maybe the other Biyako in her territory.”

     “Ah.” Hanso figured he should trust the wizard’s intuition on that, considering Ryuji was familiar enough with the species to key a spell for them and apparently identify females from males with a glance. But here Hanso’d been hoping that his light would draw in his currently-a-Biyako partner. He supposed that would still be a good thing if they could just get away from this one first.

     Naturally, it was just as the thought crossed his mind that a strangely familiar feline half-roar sounded from up ahead. A second Biyako, this one Orange (Hanso didn’t know whether he was more relieved or horrified to identify a simple colour) came crashing through the brush. Her deep blue eyes shone in the lantern’s light as she caught sight of him.

     “Brynn!” Hanso called out. “Great to see ya! Now we have to get moving.”

     Before Brynn had time to process that statement, the wild Biyako roared and sprang forth from her hiding place.

     Luckily, Brynn did manage to react to that. Twisting around just in time to catch the wild petpet crashing into her, she rolled with the momentum to keep her attacker from getting a good grip or doing much damage. Said attacker dropped to the ground before springing to her feet again with a snarl, which Brynn returned.

     “Can’t you blast the wild one with magic or something?” Hanso pleaded with Ryuji, the two of them scrambling further back while the Biyakos lashed at each other with teeth and claws.

     Ryuji held out his wings hopelessly. “I’m an enchanter and potionmaster, not a combatant! I know a few deterrents against aggressive petpets, but they won’t do much good here. The strategy for dealing with territory disputes is to not get involved.”

     “This isn’t a territory dispute, this is a wild feline freaking out and attacking my partner!” Hanso snapped. He winced as the normal Biyako sank her teeth into Brynn’s shoulder, eliciting a pained roar from the latter. Brynn knew enough about her “natural weapons” and combat training in general to hold her own, but the simple fact was that she’d only had that body for about half a day while her opponent had been born with it.

     While she batted the wild Biyako off of her and attempted to back out of this whole situation, Hanso cast about for a way to help. As much as he loathed to admit it, Ryuji was right – this was probably the sort of fight where trying to cut in would only make the situation worse. What he needed was something that would make the wild one give up the fight. Or, at least pause it long enough that they’d have a chance to actually leave her territory and satisfy her or whatever.

     Back up the ridge, movement and a soft trilling sound caught his attention. Right – Brynn had been captured with the Alkenores. She must have escaped with them and been travelling together before this “territory dispute” interrupted a proper reunion with him. Almost without thinking, Hanso whistled the signal for the Alkenores to join him.

     With a loud returning whistle, Boraxis charged down to join them, Rohane fluttering in just behind him. They had enough self-preservation instinct to give the fight a wide berth, and enough training and sheer Alkenore innocence-slash-cluelessness to hold their ground when the wild Biyako startled and stared up at them. Brynn took the opportunity to back away, panting.

     Hanso raised his arms in the air. “Yeah, that’s right! There are too many of us for you to fight now, so just let us out of your territory like you wanted in the first place, and we’ll all be happy!”

     “Hanso, don’t agitate the wild feline or she’ll feel cornered again,” Ryuji hissed quietly at him.

     Hanso coughed and lowered his hands. “Right,” he said in a much more subdued tone. “Let’s go, everyone.”

     With that, he vaulted onto Boraxis and turned him toward Kasuma before the wild Biyako could change her mind about halting the attack. Ryuji opted to take to the air rather than figure out Alkenore-back riding in the middle of everything, but Rohane followed obediently along as he, Hanso, and Brynn backed up, turned, and booked it for the village as much as they could manage. The wild Biyako didn’t follow, but Hanso swore he could feel her eyes on him until they’d all disappeared from her view.

To be continued…